Homework 9

In the following text I will discuss each of the balances described by the textbook and how (if at all) it affects our game.

Fairness:

Our game does not have a traditional sense of fairness such that everyone in the game is working with the same things. There is no enemy in the game that is like the player so the player and obstacles are given different skills to complete their task. However, because the main obstacles in our game is imagination (how do I get to a certain room when the door is locked? For example.) and puzzles (A certain button combination unlocks this window...) the fairness is somewhat based on the player.

Challenge and Success

This affects our game very much. As our game stands, the basic jist is that the player will solve a variety of puzzles and platforming in order to reach the top of a building. We have no intentions yet of making these puzzles different upon each playthrough or adding a difficulty property set by the player to change them. This means replay-ability is low. It also means much play-testing needs to be done to ensure the challenge of the puzzles and whether or not the skill level is being upped as the game progresses.

Meaningful Choices

This also affects our game. We as the developers need to be sure the choices we provide are meaningful while still being somewhat confusing (This is a puzzle game after all). Our game is asking the player to make choices on how to navigate this building and solve these puzzles.

Skill vs Chance

Chance plays a very important role in the first playthrough of the game as the player has access to many places to explore but the obstacles in his/her way up the building can only be cleared in a specific order. The platforming element within the game may take some level of skill but we do not intend for it to be particularly challenging in that respect.

Heads vs Hands

This type of balancing probably plays the biggest part in our game. The platforming type puzzles involved are the very substance that the game offers to the player. While the player may enjoy the mindless platform traversal through the levels (For instance speed runs) we intend the users of our game application to play it for the brains involved. We may have to balance these puzzles by giving players multiple ways to complete them if we find after blind trials the puzzles are not outright intuitive. This is also a form of balancing.

Competition vs Cooperation

This has little or no meaning to our game as there only one person playing our game at a time.

Short vs Long

This is also a big balancing issue for our game. We intend to make the game such that in order to get to the top of the building, the user may need to backtrack (find keys and unlock earlier rooms) as well as conduct a thorough investigation of the surrounding every time a room is entered (check office space to see if player will have meaningful interaction). Because we see the game through the eyes of the developer, we will know exactly what it takes to complete the game which may skew the reality that it may take much longer for a beginner. Since the player only has to complete a level in order to progress the story, this at least has intuitive intervals.

Rewards

Rewards relate to our game in the same way traditional platformers do. We intend to reward the user with positive sound effects and dialogue boxes that lets the user know he is being acknowledged (on the right track). There is even talks of an alternative ending to our game if the user is diligent enough to find and collect all the pieces of something that has no immediate reward.

Punishment

The game we have in theory now does not put this type of balancing into practice. In an abstract sense we are punishing the player by wasting his time when they can not figure out how to solve a puzzle or get into a certain area of the building. The book talks about taking away powers the player has to earn as a form of punishment but at this time we do not add functionality to the player beyond the controls they start with.

Freedom vs Controlled Experience

Our game gives almost too much freedom to the player. They can walk anywhere within the boundaries of the game and even switch between levels mid-level (unlocking a door in one building may require a key found in another). There are plans for minor controlled experiences where the game takes over in order to put the player through a door or up an elevator since they act as only gateway points between floors with no real need to have the player manually traverse them. This is a type of balancing that will need playtesting.

Simple vs Complex

This I feel may be where our game falls short due to time constraints. The puzzles need to be complex enough to challenge players on their first playthrough. If the puzzles are too complex or counter intuitive then they may become innate complexities as the book describes. In the scope of the entire game, however, I feel as if the fact puzzles stand in your way on top of traditional platforming elements is an emergent complexity that most games are praised for (example ICO).

Detail vs Imagination

This type of balancing applies to our game in several ways. First, there are plans to import a lot of the scenery to give the player a detailed description of the environment he is in at all times. However, there are no plans for sound effects in the game yet. The character in the game may get subtitles or no lines at all, leaving only the diary pages as a source of information. This means we are letting the player of the game decide how they feel about the story that is unfolding and protrude that emotion onto how they think the character feels in the situation she is in. We leave a little to the imagination as well for parts that are controlled experiences since the game is not entirely open world.